Candles - Flame or No Flame

Sustainability, accessibility, and availability are important things to consider in our everyday life. While there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, that is not for the individual to solve. Seems a bit of an odd way for a witchy blog to start? Not really. A lot of spells, rituals, talismans etc. require ingredients. Those ingredients have to come from somewhere and a good amount of them are consumable (think Herbs and candles). This can be discouraging for folks on a budget, who don't have a lot of room, who need to prioritize groceries over literally everything else etc.

Yes, you can use regular cooking herbs for spells. I do this all that time and strongly encourage folks to keep it within the kitchen cabinet to reduce financial strain. But what about candles? If you burn a candle every day for good sleep, or in the morning to honor deities, then you are going to go through a lot of wax. Even moving to making candles yourself can become a time and money issue. Not only that- but what about fire safety?

What is the appeal of candles?

1. Candles are a quick and easy way to represent the fire element in ritual.

2. They allows us to burn items at a small scale.

3. They allow us to burn petition papers / Bay leaves in a controlled way.

4. You can carve sigils, runes, ogham, names, pictures etc. into the wax prior to burning.

5. Candle light is relaxing and can help you reach a meditative or trance like state with its flickering.

6. Candles often smell wonderful and can help change the energy in a space. (See House-bound energy)

What is the downside to candles?

1. Not everyone has the time, attention span, or ability to sit with a candle and monitor it. Fire is dangerous!

2. If you have pets like mine - they don't really have that survival instinct of not setting themselves on fire (looking at you cats).

3. Some leases don't even allow candles to be burned during residency.

4. Outdoor rituals have to contest with the wind.

5. Candles produce waste:

   1. Tea lights have metal holders

   2. Larger candles can have glass holders

   3. Wick holders/wicks themselves

   4. Left over wax

6. Candles cost money to replace, the more you burn the more you buy.

Now - I know there are ways to reduce waste with candles. You can buy pillars outside of glass containers, you can aim to reuse left over wax and put them in already burned out candle containers etc. But all of this takes time, effort, energy and continuous financial investment to buy more candles, more wax, more wicks, etc.

So what is the alternative? Tea Lights

No matter what there is some financial cost to exist in this capitalistic world we have found ourselves. We can't avoid it - but we can mitigate the pain to the wallet.

If you have a daily ritual that burns candles (Such as the "What can you do with [insert day here]" series) and you want to reduce how many tealights you go through try wax electric candles. Not only does it provide the flickering effect of a real candle- but because it is encased in a layer of wax you can carve your daily rune into the wax in a one and done way.

Cool Image found from the Amazon.com listing

Here is an example of what I mean: Flickering Timer LED Tea Votive Candle

• Provides flame like action

• Carve able

• comes with a remote

• Set-it-and-forget-it without worrying about burning down the curtains.

• Under $25 up front investment - with replaceable batteries. Buy once - keep forever

Vs - 200 pack of Paraffin Wax tealights

They are both roughly the same price at the time of purchase (just under $25)- If you only burn one per day - you are still spending $50 every year for a daily ritual.

Don't get me wrong - I love me a regular tea light. Sometimes I just want real fire and the regular tea lights are good to keep on hand in case of emergencies such as power outages. But if I want a low energy, low attention way of setting an intention- those battery powered tea lights are my go to option.

Pillar Candles

Cool Image found from the Amazon.com listing

When you need something bigger, bolder, brighter and definitely badder- you need a pillar candle. I use these for rituals around good sleep, good health, and good wealth as I find those are the three areas I'm always needing / being asked about along with protection.

These are Battery Operated LED Pillar Candles with moving flames. (About $36 for 9 and come in various sizes and colors)

They are covered in soft wax that is deep enough for me to carve my sigils into them and they have a deep enough top where I can sprinkle some Catnip and Lavender Herbs on it. While the Herbs won't burn (as its not real fire) the intention behind their presence allows the flameless candle to work similarly to a real candle - without my paranoia of falling asleep with fire in my room.

Additionally - I can move the refreshing of the herbs to a once a month time frame vs every single night. This is important as consistency is not the way my brain communicates with the world.

Final note

My goal is not to say " Stop using real candles" that would be silly and make me a hypocrite. I simply want to point out that if you for whatever reason cannot safely burn a real candle- you can still participate in your practice and bring the element of Fire into your space. We are working with Intent - and intent works in effigy just as well as it works in actuality.

I love my flameless candles as I enjoy spending time outside to do my rituals, and I abhor fighting with the wind to do so. Mostly because it already took me a lot of mental energy just to GO outside, and now the outside is fighting me? Rude. I also love them because when I finally nail that really cool design in the wax it is not taken away by me burning the candle and I can see it, expand on it, and continue to work with it for a long time.